Your Signature Themes
T NAPIER
Your Signature Themes
Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective
people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to
develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their
families.
A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your
abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into
the core reasons behind your consistent successes.
Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank
order revealed by your responses to StrengthsFinder. Of the 34 themes measured, these are
your "top five."
Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes.
By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your
talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent,
near-perfect performance.
Strategic
The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill
that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This
perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these
patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well
what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you
can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you
start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that
lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and
make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you
strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.
Deliberative
You are careful. You are vigilant. You are a private person. You know that the world is an
unpredictable place. Everything may seem in order, but beneath the surface you sense the many
risks. Rather than denying these risks, you draw each one out into the open. Then each risk can
be identified, assessed, and ultimately reduced. Thus, you are a fairly serious person who
approaches life with a certain reserve. For example, you like to plan ahead so as to anticipate
what might go wrong. You select your friends cautiously and keep your own counsel when the
conversation turns to personal matters. You are careful not to give too much praise and
recognition, lest it be misconstrued. If some people don’t like you because you are not as effusive
as others, then so be it. For you, life is not a popularity contest. Life is something of a minefield.
Others can run through it recklessly if they so choose, but you take a different approach. You
identify the dangers, weigh their relative impact, and then place your feet deliberately. You walk
with care.
Analytical
Your Analytical theme challenges other people: “Prove it. Show me why what you are claiming is
true.” In the face of this kind of questioning some will find that their brilliant theories wither and
die. For you, this is precisely the point. You do not necessarily want to destroy other people’s
ideas, but you do insist that their theories be sound. You see yourself as objective and
dispassionate. You like data because they are value free. They have no agenda. Armed with
these data, you search for patterns and connections. You want to understand how certain
patterns affect one another. How do they combine? What is their outcome? Does this outcome fit
with the theory being offered or the situation being confronted? These are your questions. You
peel the layers back until, gradually, the root cause or causes are revealed. Others see you as
logical and rigorous. Over time they will come to you in order to expose someone’s “wishful
thinking” or “clumsy thinking” to your refining mind. It is hoped that your analysis is never
delivered too harshly. Otherwise, others may avoid you when that “wishful thinking” is their own.
Relator
Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls
you toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new
people—in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers
into friends—but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your
close friends. You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you
deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship. You want to understand their feelings,
their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that
this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk—you might be taken advantage of—but
you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the
only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with each
other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your
caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.
Individualization
Your Individualization theme leads you to be intrigued by the unique qualities of each person. You
are impatient with generalizations or “types” because you don’t want to obscure what is special
and distinct about each person. Instead, you focus on the differences between individuals. You
instinctively observe each person’s style, each person’s motivation, how each thinks, and how
each builds relationships. You hear the one-of-a-kind stories in each person’s life. This theme
explains why you pick your friends just the right birthday gift, why you know that one person
prefers praise in public and another detests it, and why you tailor your teaching style to
accommodate one person’s need to be shown and another’s desire to “figure it out as I go.”
Because you are such a keen observer of other people’s strengths, you can draw out the best in
each person. This Individualization theme also helps you build productive teams. While some
search around for the perfect team “structure” or “process,” you know instinctively that the secret
to great teams is casting by individual strengths so that everyone can do a lot of what they do
well.